Of Sea Glass and Broken Hearts
by ddroad72
Summary: "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." - Maya Angelou. At point do we give up?How do we ever know if we've had enough?How do we stop hurting? When do we stop loving? Finnick/OC. Ratings may change later.
1. Chapter 1

The Hunger Games verse and all of its characters belong to the talented Miss Collins. Other than the OC I do not own any if it. If I did, I would be out vacationing with Josh Hutcherson, not writing fanfiction.

Happy reading!

**Prologue**

The jagged edges of the glass keep digging into the soles of her feet painfully, but she refuses to acknowledge the pain, the distraction it provides. She _has to _know the truth today, has to hear it.

The bright flames in the hearth have long died out and the chill has permeated the air in its wake. The night is inky black outside but it is nothing compared to darkness that seems to etch itself into her soul. It feels like a nightmare to her, the kind where she keeps running and running and running away from something that she doesn't even know, _an eternity of endless pursuits._ The silence is almost too much for her, too deafening, too loud, too oppressive.

Her hands are fisted by her side, her hair is a gnarled, tangled mess as a plethora of emotions play across her face- hurt, resentment, betrayal, loss, anger, but most importantly _hatred_, hatred so staggeringly intense that it leaves her almost breathless and dizzy. She looks like a woman possessed.

"Tell me! Tell me the truth!" She yells at him.

"You did it, didn't you? You arranged all of it!" She realizes that she is screeching like a banshee.

He doesn't answer, just looks at the floor intently.

"You did it so that I could be unattached, so that you could sell me to the highest bidder."

_Silence._

"That is how you got them to fund me. You promised them my body, if I were to win."

After an excruciatingly long few seconds, he drags his eyes to look at her. They look so broken, so lost,_ so human._ His mouth is twisted into a frown and he pulls at his hair with an agonized look on his face. _How is it possible for someone to looks so broken yet so beautiful at the same time? _A part of her brain screams at how wrong this is, that he didn't do anything, that perhaps he should be the one yelling. It's confusing at times,_ so confusing._

Sometimes, everything becomes such a blur, she is hit by such a staggeringly intense ball of pain and anger out of the blue that her knees almost buckle as her memories, figments of the past and present seem to bleed into each other. But her anger; she holds onto it like a lifeline. Her anger is the one thing that almost always cuts across the hazy blur of emotions, of past and present, of reality and fiction.

She realizes that she is drained from all the yelling. Her feet are bleeding and the cold feels like it is creeping into her bloodstream, robbing her of whatever warmth she has left in her body,_ whatever life she has left in her body. _The truth will set you free, they say. But they don't tell you how inexplicably defeated and vulnerable it makes you;they don't tell you how _dead _it makes you feel, how alone, how lost.

But she has to hear it from his lips. She has to know if all those voices in her head are right, if her fears are justified, if her demons are his creations. The aftermath will shatter her, rip her apart, of that she is sure. So she braces herself and asks, no, _begs to know_, one last time.

"Finnick, you killed my fiancé, didn't you?"

**Author's note: This is my first Hunger Games fanfic. I feel like there aren't enough Finnick Odair fanfics out is such an amazing character and it's a shame that his personality hasn't been explored. Having said that, my Finnick might be a little OOC. However, fanfiction is where you let your pen(in this case the keyboard) run crazy and kick up a shit storm. Anyway, if you have any questions, ideas, requests then just message me and I'll be glad to answer them. Hell,ask me anything!**

**Remember, reviews= love.**

**Adios!**


	2. Of Sealed Fates

**A/N: A HUGE thank you to all of the people who have read, reviewed, followed and favourited (Is that even a word?) this story. You people have no idea how happy it makes me to know that someone likes this jiber-jaber! Seriously, you guys are awesome!**

**A special thanks to the wonderful Evanescence853. Guys,she has this lovely story called "Of Vanity and Corruption". (Link www. fanfiction s/ 9870851 /1/ Of-Vanity-and-Corruption; just remove the spaces) Check it out!**

**And I'm terribly sorry for the loooonnnngggg wait. I've been really busy with my exams. Anyways,I don't own the Hunger Games blah blah blah….You guys know the drill.**

**Happy reading!**

"_**The best of men cannot suspend their fate:**_

_**The good die early, and the bad die late."**_

_**-DANIEL DEFOE, Character of the late Dr. S. Annesley **_

They say that the best way out is through. Is it really? Is it worth all this fear, all this anger and resentment? Is it worth this constant wistful fantasies of a better life, a _better world, a safer world_?

_The Hunger Games_, _the ultimate cause of joy, celebration and pride of the Capitol_, she thinks bitterly. It's sickening how every year this monstrosity, this brutality is glorified. Every year they make the people watch innocent children turn into inhumane savages in a matter of minutes, and all of that for what?! Just to survive? To make it out alive from the arena, only to be thrust into a world that is ten times worse?

Sometimes, this particular game swims to the forefront of her mind. She is not sure as to what year it was; these games, they tend to blur into each other, the same bloodbath, the same sadistic audience, the same essential dilution of humanity. She remembers this girl from District Seven, a sweet little thing of barely twelve, not because of the untaintable innocence that she exuded throughout the game, but for the way in which she died. _Ripped apart_ by Mutts. She didn't know what was worse, the terrible screams that echoed throughout the arena or the way the cameras zoomed in on what was left of her in the end.

In a way she is lucky, she thinks. No siblings to worry about being reaped, no sobbing parents to console. She survives just for particular winter has especially been unkind to District four. Not enough food, random raids by the peacekeepers, rough winds that made fishing extremely difficult. She has been fortunate that she didn't have any extra mouths to feed. Lord knows how she would've managed that!

_One more year,_she tells herself._ Just this year and then I'll be free._ No more fear of the Games. She has this fantasy where after the reaping is over,the day comes to end, she breathes a sigh of relief and _finally _starts thinking about living, not just not dying.

"We'll get a boat and sail away." _He _had told her with a hopeful smile.

She knows that it isn't true,_ it isn't possible._ There is no escaping the Capitol, no escaping Panem, _no escaping life. _But atleast she won't have to worry about _him _being taken away from her because in the end, all of her fears boil down to this, _having to let him go._

With a deep breath she protectively curls her arms around herself to ward off the chill of the sea breeze as she begins to replay her first encounter with him, in all of his half-naked glory, brown eyes and mischievous smile. He had given her a tiny piece of sea-glass. "A token of our meeting." He had said in way of explaining, with that crooked grin that later came to be her favourite. That night she dreamt of auburn hair and sea glasses.

"Someday I'll marry you." He had promised her in all seriousness. She had laughed and waved it off. _Silly boy!_

Gradually, she braces herself for today. She has grown nerves of steel and a heart of ice, akin to all of the people of Panem. _Just get through today,_ she keeps chanting in her head like a mantra. Then she can go home with him and forget _this fear_ once and for all. She thinks of all the things that they can do today, all the ways that they can celebrate for making out of this Reaping alive and in one piece. She'll make him some soup and he'll probably give her a few more sea-shells, they'll be dancing in their backyard, and so much more.

_Just get through today._

Like a routine all of the people of District Four gather at the Hob. Attendance is mandatory unless you are on death's door. All of them are wearing grim looks on their faces, _much like in a funeral._ Because that is what it is, isn't it? Sealing the fate two unfortunate souls and forcing them to forward march, gradually, towards their own death, _year after year after year._

She is herded intoroped areas along with the rest of the twelve through eighteen year olds. There are others, family members who hold hands tightly with each other, standing just behind the partition. The look of frantic desperation is clear on their faces. Years back, during her first reaping, she tried to imagine what it would have been like to have a family that was desperate for her safety, praying to a higher power that their child would not be taken away from them. She no longer entertains such fantasies. Wishful thinking can only get you so far.

Every few seconds, she looks out into the crowd just to get a glimpse of him. They promised each other that they wouldn't do this but she can't help it. _She has to see his face, atleast once. _The rising bubble of panic inside her chest is significantly diminished when she meets his eyes. They hold a look of grimness, starkly different from the infinite hope and wisdom that usually fills them. He is dressed in an old blue shirt and brown pants. His auburn hair catches the sunlight, looking like a halo around his head, just like the first time they met.

"We'll be ok." He had promised her the day before. It confuses and amazes her, all at the same time, that how can someone so young, someone who has lost so much, suffered so much, can be capable of such hope and strength.

From his place he smiles at her. But she cannot return the gesture. Her mind is too preoccupied at what _can be._

The sound of a throat being cleared grabs her attention and her eyes face the front. The temporary podium that has been set up consists of three chairs and all of them are occupied. The mayor, a balding man of almost forty keeps shuffling in his seat. Mags, the Distrist Four mentor sits calmly in hers. Perhaps she is used to seeing so much of death that it doesn't frazzle her any more. Perhaps the Capitol has hardened her, destroyed her humanity. She is nothing short of a legend in her District. Rumor has it that she was alive before the inception of the games. One of the three surviving victors from District four, she supposedly won the ninth Hunger Games at the ripe age of thirteen, beating Finnick by just a year.

The very thought makes a shudder run down her spine. _Having to kill so many people at just thirteen. _She's not sure if she could have lived with so much of blood on her hands, but then again the Capitol has a way of turning you into monsters.

Of course, Annie Cresta is routinely absent from the Games. The lovely victor of the seventieth Hunger Games is now regarded as mentally deranged and mercifully left out from the processions. Supposedly the Capitol tried to fix her, but she was so far gone that they decided to leave her be. She is shocked that they didn't have her killed. The Capitol has an image to maintain, after all. They can't have any imperfections,_ any glitches._

The mayor walks up to the microphone and dutifully delivers his monotonous and repetitive speech. Every year it's the same. The disasters, the storms, the famines and floods, the wars leading to the inception of Panem ringed by thirteen districts, the rise and fall of District Thirteen. The thinly veiled message that it carries is starkly clear, "If you rebel, we will destroy every last one of you."

Next, the microphone is handed over to Pharmanick Larkin, the district escort. Her outfit is just as ridiculous as her name. Dressed in green from head to toe, she looks like a clump of sea weed. A strange assortment of what seems to be feathers on her head, makes her head look larger than it really is. Even from a distance, her sharp talons like nails are unmistakable. _Must be a Capitol thing,_ she thinks.

"Welcome, welcome, my good people. Here's to a successful Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" She chips a little too enthusiastically. The people hardly celebrate her sentiments.

It's time for the draw. She struts towards the glass ball and the entire crowd seems to stop breathing. "Ladies first!" She makes a great show of reaching into the ball and digging through the thousands of slips of papers. Finally she pulls out one and reads out the name, loud and clear.

"Annabell Silvertongue!"

Time stops and so does her heart, or so seems. This isn't happening. _This is a mistake, it has to be_! This cannot be happing, _this shouldn't be happening._ This is her last year. She is not supposed to be Reaped! She is supposed to make it out alive. She is supposed to go home today, not to the Capitol! One slip of paper, that is how many times she entered her name. What were the odds of her getting reaped?

Her muscles refuse to co-operate and her limbs refuse to move. Every cell in her body is protesting. There is an arm encasing her elbow. It's the girl beside her. Maybe she started to fall and the girl caught her. She is much too dazed to notice anything.

Two of the peacekeepers grab her and haul her forward. They are far too rough with her. As she walks forward, the crowd parts hastily. She is no longer one of them, she's a tribute now. Her fate has been sealed. _A dead woman walking._

As she reaches the stage, Pharmanick shakes her hand; it's more of a forced and formal gesture, a pretense. She knows that her own hands are clammy and shaking terribly. As she passes the three chairs, she steals a glimpse at Mags-_no reaction, _just a stoic face. She turns towards the crowds and stands in a corner, as if trying to curl into herself, _trying to disappear._

One,two,three….she keeps counting in her head to calm herself. Pharmanick reaps a boy, but she is too far gone to care. It doesn't matter to her who her fellow tribute is. She is just as dead as them. She cannot bring herself to meet anyone's eyes. She refuses to acknowledge the looks of pity that their faces hold.

But something is wrong. There seems to be a commotion, a disturbance. _Strange, _she thinks. Reapings are usually an extremely, almost unpleasantly quiet and formal matter. People speak just as much as necessary and do exactly as they are instructed.

She looks up just as a frighteningly familiar voice announces, "I volunteer as tribute," as clearly as a bell.

It's _Cleon._

"Lovely!" Pharmanick claps her hand in glee. In a District where volunteering is all but extinct, such an act is bound to draw attention. Perhaps the Capitol people are already sitting a little straighter in their seats. "I believe that there is a small matter of introduction," she continues.

He walks upto the stage, the slight tremor in his body unnoticeable to the unfamiliar eye, and says in a clear voice, "Cleon Yeager."

And that's it. _She is going into the arena with her lover._

**A.N: I know that District 4 is one of the Career districts but I'm taking a little bit of artistic liberty here.**

**Plus, I know that I made Mags seem cold and heartless but it'll change. So just trust me and bear with me.**

**Apart from that, if there are any spelling or punctuation errors then I apologize. I'm only human and laptop won't co-operate. **

**So leave me some reviews and I would love to hear your opinions on how the story should proceed or what you guys would like to read about. Hell, tell me anything!**

**Adios!**


	3. Of Divided Interests

**Thank you for the alerts and the favorites but guys, please leave me a review. I cannot continue to write unless I get some feedback, unless I know that you people like it. Seriously, is it good? Bad? Intolerable? Does it make you wanna punch me in the face?**

**Anyway, I do not own the Hunger Games….blah blah.**

"_**Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."**_

_**-Friedrich Nietzsche.**_

A heavy sigh escapes his lips as he lies there, slumped in the sweat-stained silk sheets. His body seems to be crying out at the intensity of the strain and exhaustion of the last few hours. He wonders if his patron is done with him for the day. _A man can only take so much, even if it is Finnick Odair._

He peers down to see her freakishly claw-like nails scrape across his pecs. She isn't overtly beautiful. Infact, she is one of the most bizarre looking creatures that he has seen in the Capitol and that is saying something because Finnick has met _a lot _of Capitol people. Her forehead is tattooed with a fluorescent pink ink and her chin with red. Her skin is an abnormal tinge of blue and if he hadn't known better, he would've assumed that she was sick.

"Are you tired?" She purrs at him.

"Yes, you wore me out." He smirks at her. He doesn't even have to try to put his artificial charm back on. He has been using it for _so long and for so many people_ that it seems to have become an integral part of him.

He wonders what his patron has paid for his company today. Come to think of it, he has never seen the money, _his cost, _exchange hands. _What happens behind closed doors remains behind closed doors. _Finnick chooses to trade in much more valuable things- _secrets,_ the one common denominator between every victor, every power head, every viewer, _everyone._

He stares at her face with a disturbed fascination. Why do these people think that looking like animals is the way forward? He once had a client that had whiskers implanted into her cheeks and it had taken all of his self restraint not to laugh at her while she licked her way down his body. The most puzzling thing about all these rendezvouses was that his clients seem to want him with a certain degree of desperation because they find him so natural. _It is ironic, really, _he thinks bitterly. These people, they seem to have this profound ability to take anything natural, anything beautiful and destroy it with their inhumanity. Sometimes he wonders if he'll end up like one of those destroyed things when the Capitol is done with him, when his youth and charm are no longer at his bid.

She is slowly removing the sheets away from his naked body and slithering up his waist, ignoring how utterly spent both of them are. She probably wants her money's worth. After all, she must've paid a great deal. Even though he had left her moaning and gasping for breath just a few minutes ago, the reminder of the fortune that she has spent on him is making her hungry. And of course, Finnick has to comply or else President Snow will hear of it. She gently traces his navel with her tongue. "You're so beautiful, so divine."

He wants to laugh at this. If only his patron knew how plain his mother is or how exceptionally unexceptional his father was, as he died somewhat waxy and with the merest suggestion of youth and vitality.

But Finnick, for all his humble origins, knows that he is a looker and isn't shy of using it for his advantage, _for his survival. _He has people at his disposal. If he is in need of clothes, he has the finest of textiles delivered for him. If he is in need of food, he has the highest quality of dishes at his fingertips. He relishes in this small degree of power that he holds. It has been six years since he had won his Games and people still tell him that he belongs in the Capitol, amongst its powerful, perfect and infallible people. _He neither agrees nor disagrees with them._

Now he doesn't curse his face as often as he used to. He has realized that if he hadn't had his looks, he wouldn't have caught the viewers' and the sponsors' attention, he wouldn't have been given the trident and he most definitely wouldn't have survived. For now, Finnick Odair has chosen to live and if he lives, he will not remember or regret the day he decided that death was too ordinary, too undistinguishable an option for him.

Initially, the fear of having his mother and his siblings killed made him desperate to please his patrons. But they took him for granted. Some of them were entirely too rough. They clawed at him, bit him in the throes of their passion and some used toys that were extremely unpleasant.

He remembers one of the worst nights that he had to endure. The Capitol woman was perhaps twice his age, it's usually hard to tell with their bodily alterations and modifications. The rope that she had used to tie his hands to the bed with, had left his wrists with burn marks. After, what felt like hours, when she was done with him, he had walked upto the mirror to inspect the damage done to his body. Among the random bruising, his lower lip was bleeding from when she had bitten it too aggressively, his entire back was decorated with ugly, red, angry welts and lacerations and there was a giant, bleeding bite mark along his left nipple that had needed his attention for days.

Since then, he has learned to withhold a little. He isn't as eager to please them as he was during his early days. Instead, he teases them in bed, withholds their pleasure and makes them beg. That keeps them wanting to please him instead, and their secrets and gifts come from their desire to pamper him.

"How old are you?" She gazes at him like a love-sick puppy.

"As if you don't know," he mock scoffs ate her. "Twenty."

"Quite the experienced one, aren't you?" This is the part that he dreads, the constant probing into his life, the incandescent personal questions, the need to know his past. Of course he always manages to dodge them. Being physically naked, he can take, but he refuses to be emotionally naked as well. So instead he shifts the attention onto them, coaxing the secrets from their lips and seducing the sinister truths from their minds.

"How was your first time?" She rakes her fingernails across his scalp. It makes his skin crawl.

How is he supposed to answer that?

His fist time was an abnormal haze, with a blue skinned woman that had piercings all over her body and a voice so shrill that it had startled him at first. It was entirely too rough, too brutish for his, _hell, anybody's first time. _Perhaps she fancied herself an animal. He had woken up bewildered and questioning if he was still sane. He decided that he was. Slowly, he had started to build his repertoire, moving from one client to the next and collecting one secret after another. It gave him a sick sense of pleasure, knowing that Snow had no idea of the hold that he had on his patrons, that they would rather sleep with him than keep all of the Capitol's secrets.

"Well?" she insists, propped on her elbow. The sheets smell strongly of artificial roses, a perfume that is apparently quite popular within the Capitol circle.

He looks at his patron and grins cheekily, "Nowhere near as good as this."

Apparently, she is satisfied with the answer. What she doesn't know is that Finnick's first time is just as same as his second time or his third or fourth. The patrons, these arrangements, the gifts, the charm, they all blend into each other, leaving nothing but a hazy fog for him to remember at the end of each day and each night.

Her curiosity is still ripe. "Have you ever loved someone?" She is stroking him now.

"I love myself." He says smoothly, caressing her back.

"Kiss me, Finnick," there is an urgency in her voice.

And he does, fighting the urge to gag as she deepens the kiss. He cannot refuse the clients that Snow sends him, he has learned this the hard way. Once, tired and exhausted, he had refused to lie with a beefy-looking man, almost twice his size. The next day, his father's body was recovered from the sea, where he had had a "boating accident".

The memory of his father still haunts him, particularly on days when he feels homesick. He had died because of him and there was nothing that he could say, nothing that he could do to undo that. For this reason, Finnick does not go to District Four much. The house, the boat, the meadows, everything reminds him of his father's death and it's too much, even for someone like Finnick. He hasn't even met his mother in such a long time; he doesn't dare to, for fear that the things he adores, the people that he loves might be used against him.

His patron is getting excited, as she grabs his waist possessively. He has grown not to think much about being treated as a toy now. He doesn't mind being dehumanized; it helps him to keep detached. She begins to shift the sheets around and crawl on top of him, indicating what she wants. With a sigh, he abruptly flips her onto her back and settles between her legs as she squeals with excitement. He feels her hiss and clench around him and he gasps, trying to control their rhythm in case she takes control. He'd rather have the upper hand, if he must be in situations like these. She arches her back off the bed, smothering her breasts that feel hard even if they are generous, against his chest. As she starts to claw at his back, he attempts to pin her wrists above her head, and she mistakes his repulsion for a dominance driven by lust. She responds with greater vigor.

But he tolerates all of this with a rigid presence of mind. He teases her mercilessly, and makes her beg for him. If there is one thing that he utterly enjoys, it is seeing them grovel for him when it is them that pay fortunes to _own him,_ even if temporarily. He feeds them the illusion of their dominance, but they all know who is in power, in the end. He refuses to be a puppet any longer. The days during which he was controlled are fast fading; gradually they'll come to an end completely. Now he takes the reign, and hopefully, a day will come when he won't have to act as a mere sex slave for President Snow.

His patron is moaning at the top of her voice, thrashing underneath him. Finnick draws out his next words carefully, "Only if you tell me what I want to know."

She is out of control, too far gone to even think coherently, let alone refuse him.

"Anything!" Her voice is too loud, too grating. "I'll tell you anything. Just please….."

"Promise?" He draws out the torture just a little longer.

"Yes!" she shrieks at the top of her lungs and he proceeds.

Later, when they are done, she strokes his hair lovingly and murmurs the words that he wants to hear in his ears. As she throws a wink over her shoulder, on the way out, Finnick knows that he must continue to earn and save those secrets.

It is the only way from giving into insanity.

Tonight he sits alone at the bar, nursing a drink in a corner. He usually spends his nights off in here. The loud music helps to drown the thoughts of the day and the whisky that burns its way down his throat, helps to keep his mind off of tomorrow because _tomorrow is always worse._ He ignores the people that walk past him, murmur things to him, drop him gifts and flowers. He hates them but he can't throw them back at their faces. That will anger them.

His eyes flicker towards the large screen that is strategically placed on the front wall. They are airing few bits and pieces from the Reapings. He isn't sure if he wants to watch, if he wants to know his Tributes this year. It only makes it harder for the mentors when they get killed in the arena.

As usual, the Careers from the first three Districts look lethal. The male from District Three looks almost like a wild bear, large enough to choke someone to death. The female Tribute from District One is beautiful, perhaps one of the most beautiful things that Finnick has ever seen, yet it does nothing to hide the spark of sadistic glee at the prospect of killing the others.

The Tributes from his District are nothing special; they are extremely average. The girl turns almost green on hearing her name. Wide eyed and pale, she looks like a fragile little thing, ready to break at any given moment. As the camera zoomes in on her face, Finnick realizes what resignation looks like. At that moment he knows that there is no saving her, she has already lost hope.

But he is absolutely unprepared for what happens next. A boy of an average built shoves his way through the crowd, raises his hand as high as it can get and all but yells, "I volunteer as Tribute." This is new, very, very new. Finnick doesn't remember the last time anyone volunteered at the Games. _People are selfish enough let others die rather than take their place_, that's the cold and inevitable truth and he knows that.

The boy walks upto the stage with a stoic face and introduces himself. Both tributes share a long, inexplicable look. Finnick doesn't know if they are friends, or even acquaintances. But he thinks that _maybe, just maybe, this Game might be a little different._

**A.N. Finnick won the Games when he was fourteen and the events that unfold here happen six years later, making him twenty. The OC is almost eighteen. So a two year age difference isn't a lot, don't you think?**

**On a different note, HOLY CHEETOS! I saw Catching Fire and I can't even…Guys, I just can't..SAM IS JUST BLOODY PERFECT! AND MAGS! God have mercy on my tear glands! I cried like a baby! I think I'm in love with Jena Malone and that is why I intend to include Johanna in this story. She isn't appreciated enough.**

**Anyways, leave me some reviews and throw some crazy theories at me.**

**Adios!**


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